Marine gets Silver Star for saving buddy

He carried team leader the distance of 3 football fields

Staff Sergeant Timothy Williams was awarded the silver star as well as the purple heart at an awards ceremony in Camp Pendelton. The 33-year-old noncomisssioned officer was greeted by fellow Marines and his father, Chuck Williams (right) after the ceremony convened.

Staff Sergeant Timothy Williams was awarded the silver star as well as the purple heart at an awards ceremony in Camp Pendelton. The 33-year-old noncomisssioned officer was greeted by fellow Marines and his father, Chuck Williams (right) after the ceremony convened.

A star running back at his tiny Michigan high school, Staff Sgt. Timothy Williams hoisted the team leader over his shoulder and ran the length of three football fields, as gun muzzles flashed all around.

Finally, they reached the landing zone and the medevac helicopter. His buddy, leg shattered by a rifle bullet, was saved.

On Tuesday, that team leader stood by at Camp Pendleton as Williams was awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest combat medal, for his heroism in Afghanistan.

“You wonder, how does a person get that type of courage to make the right decisions on a day like that,” said Lt. Gen. John Toolan, commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, who pinned the ribbon on Williams’ chest.

Jason Pennock is the team leader whose life Williams saved. The two traded good-natured jabs after the ceremony.

“He should have kept up the fight and not worried about me,” said Pennock, 31, who still walks with a cane. “But the fact that he carried me out, and then continued to fight, is well above and beyond.”

Williams, a 33-year-old father of two, countered that he learned everything he knows from Pennock. Plus, he realized his buddy might lose that leg.

“There’s no way you could quit on somebody like Jason,” he said. “He’s kind of hard to deal with sometimes, but he really knows what he is doing.”

It was July 2012, and the Marines were just transitioning from doing the fighting themselves to training Afghan soldiers to eventually take over.

Lieutenant General John Toolan awarded Staff Sergeant Timothy Williams the silver star as well as the purple heart at an awards ceremony in Camp Pendelton. The 33-year-old noncomisssioned officer was awarded for acts of valor while serving in Afghanstan.

Lieutenant General John Toolan awarded Staff Sergeant Timothy Williams the silver star as well as the purple heart at an awards ceremony in Camp Pendelton. The 33-year-old noncomisssioned officer was awarded for acts of valor while serving in Afghanstan.

Williams, Pennock and three other Marines were on patrol with 11 Afghans, headed to question some locals about a weapons cache. Out of nowhere, about 35 Taliban fighters ambushed them.

About two hours into the fight, Pennock was hit. The bullet knocked him into a canal. He tied his own tourniquet to stop the bleeding, but it was all he could do to hold his head above the water.

Williams ran 60 yards over open ground to get to his team leader. Dragging him out of the ditch, he picked up Pennock’s 190-pound frame. That weight, along with the nearly 100 pounds of Williams’ own gear, made the slog to the helicopter a back-breaking prospect.

“It was exhausting,” the Silver Star recipient said. “It was probably one of the hardest things I ever did.”

Afterward, the staff sergeant from Michigan returned to the ambush and took charge.

The Marine Corps credits him with killing five Taliban shooters and then moving the team to join another U.S. force pinned down about a mile and a half away.

A high school wrestler and football running back, he was the county’s leading rusher his senior year. (A bit shy, he hated that as football team captain, he was expected to speak at pep rallies, his mom said.)

“This is no surprise, because everyone knows Tim was always trying to be a good kid. Just a nice kid. And he always did his best at everything he did,” said Barbara Williams, who drives the high school bus back home.

Her husband, Chuck, is a retired General Motors worker. Both attended the Camp Pendleton ceremony with Williams’ wife, Jill, and their boys, 5-year-old Malachi, and Taj, 3.

Timothy Williams joined the Navy in May 2000, after his first year of college. His mother wasn’t happy. She wanted him to get a degree.

But Williams couldn’t find his way in academia. He became a Navy search-and-rescue swimmer, serving on the destroyer Stout.

Four years later, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. Following the September 2001 attacks, he felt his talents would be better used on the ground.

Williams serves with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Pendleton.

In July 2012, his team was outside of Marjah, once a hotbed of Taliban fighters. It was a dicey time for the Marines in southwest Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

“They were just building relationships with the Afghans,” Toolan said after the ceremony.

“Working with the Afghan security forces, there was a lot of trust that was built up, particularly on a day like that — when all the Afghan soldiers turned to the sounds of the guns” to fight alongside the Marines.

On Tuesday, Williams received not only a Silver Star but also a Purple Heart for combat injuries.

And, he got a contract to stay in uniform. Toolan conducted the reenlistment ceremony on the parade ground, as Williams’ battalion looked on.

“I am delighted that you are enlisting for four more, so we can get a whole lot more out of you,” Toolan said.